Industrial and Commercial Bank of China


Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited is a multinational Chinese banking company.
Founded as a limited company on January 1, 1984, ICBC is a state-owned commercial bank. With capital provided by the Ministry of Finance of China, the bank's Tier 1 capital in 2013 was the largest of one thousand global banks, being the first bank headquartered in China to achieve this distinction in modern history. Subsequently, ranked the largest bank in the world 2017 and 2018, by total assets,, ICBC was positioned at 1st in The Bankers Top 1000 World Banks ranking, every year from 2012 to 2019, and first on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's biggest public companies.

History

Preconditions of 1948-1979

From 1948 the mono-banking system of China was the People's Bank of China, providing both policy lending, and, operations to the commercial sector. During 1978 to 1979 banking reform was initiated by the government of China, with the express desire of bringing into existence a central bank accompanying four total central governmentally owned specializing banks, one of these four being ICBC.

1979-1985

A Two-Tier banking system was made.

1984–2005

By rights of a contradiction within the economic functioning of the government of China, the People's Republic, the State Council of China, during September of 1983 made a decision to separate certain activities of the government to an exclusively operating organisation, subsequently named the Industrial and Commercial bank of China, established on 1 January 1984. ICBC was then the fourth of the four specialist banks of 1978–1979 to be made, from the taking of control of commercial activities from People's Bank of China so that the latter might be transformed to a newly made central bank.
ICBC opened a branch in Luxembourg which became the European headquarters of the bank in 2011. ICBC S.A. operates a network covering branches in major European cities, namely Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Warsaw and Lisbon.
The bank's Hong Kong operations are listed under the name ICBC Asia. It has purchased the Hong Kong subsidiary of Fortis Bank and rebranded it under its own name on 10 October 2005.

2006–2008

Customer base

As of 2006, ICBC had 2.5 million corporate customers and 150 million individual customers.

IPO

In the runup to its planned initial public offering, on 28 April 2006, three "strategic investors" injected US$3.7 billion into ICBC:
ICBC was simultaneously listed on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange on 27 October 2006. It was the world's largest IPO at that time valued at US$21.9 billion, surpassing the previous record US$18.4 billion IPO by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998. In 2010, Agricultural Bank of China broke ICBC's IPO record when it raised $22.1 billion. China's largest commercial bank was also the first company to debut simultaneously on both the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges.
ICBC raised at least US$14 billion in Hong Kong and another US$5.1 billion in Shanghai. Due to heavy subscriptions, the greenshoe placements were exercised and ICBC's take rose to US$21.9 billion, divided in US$16 billion in Hong Kong and US$5.9 billion in Shanghai. Following the global offering, the free float of shares was 22.14% of the market capitalization.
At the end of its first day of trading, the bank's shares closed up almost 15% at HK$3.52 in Hong Kong, compared with the listing price of HK$3.07, which was set at the top of the indicative range due to the strong demand. According to Bloomberg, ICBC's market capitalisation at the end of trade based on its Hong Kong shares was US$156.3 billion, making its equity the world's fifth highest among banks, just behind JPMorgan Chase. Meanwhile, ICBC's Shanghai-listed A-shares recorded more modest gains and ended up 5.1% from the offering price of RMB 3.12.
During July 2007 ICBC was ranked 30th in the world in terms of revenue.

Foreign activity

In August 2008, ICBC became the second Chinese bank since 1991 to gain federal approval to establish a branch in New York City.
ICBC loans $400 million towards the completion of the Gibe III dam in Ethiopia. Groups that oppose the dam such as International Rivers and Survival International have complained about or have written to ICBC against the dam's funding.

2011–2017

On January 24, 2011, ICBC opened a branch office in Madrid, Spain.
On 20 May 2011, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. established two branches in Pakistan, one in Karachi, the other in Islamabad. On 18 August 2011, ICBC passed the examination from State Bank of Pakistan and started its business in Pakistan.
During November 2012, ICBC acquires a 80% stake of Standard Bank Argentina, the largest operation of a Chinese bank in Latin America. In Argentina, the bank has ~1,000,000 individual customers, ~30,000 companies of all categories and more than 1600 corporate companies.
During the 2013 Korean crisis, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China halted business with a North Korean bank accused by the United States of financing Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.
It was announced at the end of July 2013 that South Africa's Standard Bank was in talks to sell its markets business in London to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for more than $500 million.
On September 24, 2014, ICBC Kuwait Branch officially opened in Kuwait City, capital of Kuwait. As the first and currently the only Chinese bank in Kuwait, the establishment of ICBC Kuwait Branch ended the history of no Chinese bank's presence in Kuwait. Meanwhile, it is also the fourth branch of ICBC in the Middle East, following branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha.
As of December 2, 2014, ICBC is ranked the largest bank in the world by assets and by tier 1 capital.
On May 25, 2015, the Company further strengthened its presence in the Middle East and Europe by purchasing Turkey's TekstilBank and forming its ICBC Turkey subsidiary.
On February 17, 2016, the Spanish Guardia Civil raided the offices of ICBC in Madrid, Spain, investigating suspicions of money laundering.
On November 18, 2016, the bank obtained a license to take deposits in Russia.
ICBC Financial Services, the bank's brokerage unit, provided about $88 billion of repo financing at the end of 2015, up from $59 billion two years ago, according to regulatory filings. The figures are before netting agreements that can be used to reduce overall assets and liabilities. Almost all the repo financing that ICBC provides is on U.S. government bonds.
ICBC launched robo-advisor service to its wealth-management operations in 2017.
In October 2017, the Bank reported a 3.3 percent rise in its net profit for the third quarter.

Finances

Accounting

ICBC has the policy of preparing accounts confirming to the International Financial Reporting Standards, accepting specifically criteria IFRS 9 from January 1, 2018. and IFRS 16 from January 1, 2019.

Basic figures

2005

In 2005, net profit was up 12.4% to RMB 33.7 billion, and the total loan balance was RMB 3,289.5 billion. Total liabilities are RMB 6,196.2 billion, up 11.2%. Delinquent or non-performing loans total RMB 154.4 billion, a significant reduction although the figures are widely regarded as being somewhat higher than officially stated. It has an NPL ratio of 4.69% and a capital adequacy ratio of 9.89%.

Summary

2003-2018
Financials in Renminbi
Year20032004200520062007200820092010
Revenue, bln107.5126.7193.1181.6257.4310.2309.4380.7
Net Income, bln2.4732.31133.7049.2681.52110.8129.4166.0
Assets, trln5.2795.6716.4547.5098.6849.75711.7913.46
Equity, bln170.5163.0253.4466.5538.4602.7673.9820.4

Year20112012201320142015201620172018
Revenue, bln470.6529.7578.9634.9668.7641.7675.7725.1
Net Income, bln208.4238.7263.0276.3277.7279.1287.5298.7
Assets, trln15.4817.5418.9220.6122.2124.1426.0927.70
Equity, bln956.71125127415311789197021272330

Loans

Listed to industry

In millions of Chinese RMB in 2005:
Total: 3,289,553

With collateralization

At the end of 2004, 19.1% of ICBC's portfolio consisted of non-performing loans. In order to clean up ICBC's balance sheet and prepare it for overseas listing, the Chinese government orchestrated a series of capital injections, asset transfers, and government-subsidised bad loan disposals that eventually cost more than US$162 billion. This included an approval for a cash injection of US$15 billion on 28 April 2005. The Beijing-based state company, China Huarong Asset Management, helped ICBC dispose of its bad loans. As the 2005 annual report records, just under 5% of loans are classified as non-performing, in comparison with the majority of western banks who have lower NPL ratios.

Board of Directors

The company has 449, 226 employees, there are 24 members of the board, with one Chairmen, one Supervisory Board Chairman and one Vice-Chairman. Chen Siqing, the current Chairman, assumed his role after resigning in April 2019 from Bank of China, where he was the Chair, Executive Director and chairman and participating board member within the Strategic Development Committee. Siqing had no disagreement with the Board at the time of his resignation, made purely for the reason of vocational change to ICBC. Yi Huiman, the previous chairman, finished with the company to fulfil the position of chairman at the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
As of 17 May 2020, the board is as stands:
In 2008 ICBC was the first Chinese Bank to adopt the Equator Principles, an international set of social and environmental standards for financial institutions launched in 2003. It has also adopted the Green Credit Policy launched in 2007 by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection. International environmental groups have criticized ICBC for failing to adhere to its social environmental standards and of being hypocritical, because ICBC is involved in the financing of the controversial Gilgel Gibe III Dam in Ethiopia.

Subsidiaries

International

In 2005, the Chinese government arrested several government officials in addition to bankers with regards to the accusation of a scheme to take illegally US$900 million from ICBC.
In November 2015, ICBC Standard Bank, an overseas subsidiary acquired in February of that year, agreed to pay a fine of a maximum of $40 million to UK authorities.
On 17 February 2016, the Spanish Guardia Civil supported by Europol, arrested six executives of the Spanish location of the bank accused of money-laundering.
In 2018, the US Federal Reserve had found "serious deficiencies" of the bank, on, anti-money laundering protections.

Awards